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Indy

After reading through loads of threads here's a question.

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Does the squad make Alex Neil look better than his management ability at thi level? Or is the squad not as good as we think and Alex Neil getting the best out of an average squad?

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Interesting Indy,

How about the squad/match day performances are reflecting AN''s ability.

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My first thought was also Lambert, who took players and made them play at a higher level

AN however seems to not get players to play at the level we would expect - HOWEVER there have clearly been times this season where we have played at a much better than at other times, but we haven''t been able to do it for a whole game

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I''m sorry but Lambert is not a fair comparison, it''s a completely different ball game.

When we got promoted to the Championship we were hardly favourites for promotion - teams came and attacked us and underestimated us and, importantly, Holt & Hoolahan.

People no longer understimate Hoolahan and we don''t have Holt. I''m not sure we''d have done as well if teams came and sat back against us every week like they do now.

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It all boils down to defence, with match and mental fitness thrown in.

I think the players are good enough but in some key facets of the game are not properly organised and prepared.

Part of AN'' s development as manager must be to recognise where he needs some help, be able to ask for it and to get it.

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So VanW you''re hedging your bets with that, are you saying AN isn''t getting the best out of the defence?

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Yes I am saying AN isn''t getting the best out of the defence Indy. IMHO he needs some help.

If he isn''t prepared to recognise that then it''s a problem and in my view a serious weakness.

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At the start of the season the general feeling I got from this forum was that we hadn''t quite got the squad right missing a good centre half and an additional proven striker.

Nothing has changed - therefore why should we be any better than we currently are?

I feel we are missing a bit of steel in the team and somebody who can inspire the rest on the pitch. not necessarily off it?

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Well apparently the board didn''t back Alex Neil and left him with a squad not good enough to get out of this league. However any other manager would get them promoted by March.

I love this site ☺

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That''s one point which made me raise the question nutty, fundamentally it''s either the players not good enough or the management, that''s pretty much what''s been argued.

There certainly appears to be a lack of focus, motivation for the full 90, no reaction to being pegged back and the same mistakes whoever the starting 11, I''d have to say the coaching and manager are at fault, as I think we have pretty much the best squad we could have......

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I think its a fair assessment that this is one of the best squads in this league.

The missing ingredient appears to be a will/determination to win.

PL had the ability to convince average players they were invincible ..... they were also 100% fit

As such we won an awful lot of points in the final few minutes of games which increased confidence and completed the cycle.

The current regime seem to struggle with man management....play well and get dropped ? have a stinker and keep your place ?

For whatever reason there seems no or very little togetherness amongst the current squad ?

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Although momentum and being an unknown quantity certainly played a part in Lambert''s success there is little comparison between him and Neil in my opinion. As I said on another thread Lambert on many occasions changed a game in our favour with tactical decisions and substitutions. Something Neil seems incapable of. I honestly can''t remember the last time he turned a game in our favour from the sidelines. Another big difference between the two managers is players knew if they underperformed they would be dropped. Something Neil seems stubbornly loath to do, which is clearly leading to a complacency amongst many of the players.

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[quote user="westcoastcanary"]How many managers does it take before people realise the manager isn''t the problem? [/quote]So you think a manager who keeps faith with players who are consistently failing to perform to the required standard, whilst players who''ve been brought in to prove that they can do better, and then despite them performing well, are being unceremoniously dropped for the same underperforming player they replaced, and you think that somehow this isn''t the manager''s problem...Interesting, please explain exactly how that works, unless you think our team selection is done by committee???

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Indy, I''d be interested to know which players have been consistently failinng to perform to the required standard and what that standard actually is?

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If it''s an EU standard Nutty, it''ll be superseded by the new BS standard in March I believe.

I don''t believe any players constantly fail but there are three or four senior players not hitting the form we need, Naismith, Brady, Klose and Tettey fall into this for me.

The trouble is it''s easy to be critical but I''ve pointed out already we''ve had a decent start to the season, be it most lower standard teams, those decent teams we''ve not done too well with.

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Well Naismith has hardly played so it''s not him. And it can''t be the standard of opposition because we can only play the teams on the fixture list and the results are what they are. So that leaves Brady, Klose and Tettey keeping out the players who are being uncerimoniously dropped after playing well. Who are these players Indy?

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I''m only Indy, Indybones deffinately contributes some good points.....

Tettey disrupts the game well breaks up play and generally gets stuck in, when he played well we tend to win.

Naismith is a player everyone apart from a few of us was made out to be a star this season......the hype isn''t there because he''s never been that great, Everton was his only real big move and there he wasn''t always first choice....he''s a great guy, looks after lots of good causes but not anywhere near what we need don''t you think Nutty?

I think Pritchard is the player Indy B is really alluding to, played one game really impressive then dropped!

Anyhow my thread is about where people apportion the blame as this has been talked about on other threads, management or players who''s to blame?

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]Indy, I''d be interested to know which players have been consistently failinng to perform to the required standard and what that standard actually is?[/quote]Fair question.Players below par this season (who have played at least 450 mins+):OlssonMartinBennettBradyNaismithAs for the ''required standard'', well how about ''being able to consistently perform the demands of the role''? Neither Martin nor Bennett convince alongside Klose (who has also struggled at times against the more physical opponents at this level), although I concede that Martin is the best choice of a bad bunch atm, and I''m not sure how AN can change this until Jan tbh.Brady has looked a shadow of the player we saw in the Summer, and in truth has probably look better at LB than LW, which is also interesting considering I think Olsson has been fairly weak this season, although the more attacking nature of how AN sets the FB''s up does impact on this, but defensively Olsson (and Pinto as well at times) has been pretty poor and if we had a more solid player e.g. Drury of old, then surely Olsson would have been dropped long ago, and Murphy has pretty much outshone Brady as well.Naismith has come nowhere near the expected levels (however you choose to define this), he doesn''t look anything like an 8mil player, and in truth I still can''t really work out where his best position actually is, because even when in Wes'' position he doesn''t look fully comfortable.

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The core of this squad has boinged in and out of the prem for seasons and under 3 managers before AN.

It seems we are over rating an occasionally excellent but normally uninspiring squad who are performing at their inconsistent norm.

AN is clearly struggling, and is becoming very fruatrated at, his inability to make the squad perform consistently at their higher level for more than a game at a time. it''s A task that is probably beyond them him and the squad.

And despite that this league remains poor enough to mean it won''t take too much for us to still gain promotion.

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[quote user="The young canary"]Never understand people who are obsessed with one character or another it''s a team game[/quote]And if certain players are failing to perform to the same level as their teammates and in fact are costing us in one form or another - be this missed shots, missed tackles, failed clearances or even simple passing to keep the ball, then the team will suffer as a whole because of it.If it''s the same players on a relatively consistent basis, that shows exactly where changes need to be made, either in tactics or personnel...

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Nutty, Sorry I owe you a reply from another thread re "unanswered questions."

What I meant was questions such as this for which it is hard for us mere mortal fans to understand why (as it was put brilliantly in this thread) "the whole is less than the sum of it''s parts."

Perhaps we over analyse. Maybe It''s just football, this is normal in any club? Perhaps we shouldn''t expect any clear answers.

Meanwhile I''ll be at Brighton tomorrow and looking forward to a brilliant bounce-back!

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No worries Nutty, I''m off to London after a stint in Norway! Good luck with PUPs this weekend, my bet.......

Redskins to beat the Bengals.........😉

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[quote user="Indy_Bones"][quote user="westcoastcanary"]How many managers does it take before people realise the manager isn''t the problem? [/quote]So you think a manager who keeps faith with players who are consistently failing to perform to the required standard, whilst players who''ve been brought in to prove that they can do better, and then despite them performing well, are being unceremoniously dropped for the same underperforming player they replaced, and you think that somehow this isn''t the manager''s problem...Interesting, please explain exactly how that works, unless you think our team selection is done by committee???[/quote]
[quote user="Indy_Bones"][quote user="nutty nigel"]Indy, I''d be interested to know which players have been consistently failinng to perform to the required standard and what that standard actually is?[/quote]Fair question.Players below par this season (who have played at least 450 mins+):OlssonMartinBennettBradyNaismithAs for the ''required standard'', well how about ''being able to consistently perform the demands of the role''? Neither Martin nor Bennett convince alongside Klose (who has also struggled at times against the more physical opponents at this level), although I concede that Martin is the best choice of a bad bunch atm, and I''m not sure how AN can change this until Jan tbh.Brady has looked a shadow of the player we saw in the Summer, and in truth has probably look better at LB than LW, which is also interesting considering I think Olsson has been fairly weak this season, although the more attacking nature of how AN sets the FB''s up does impact on this, but defensively Olsson (and Pinto as well at times) has been pretty poor and if we had a more solid player e.g. Drury of old, then surely Olsson would have been dropped long ago, and Murphy has pretty much outshone Brady as well.Naismith has come nowhere near the expected levels (however you choose to define this), he doesn''t look anything like an 8mil player, and in truth I still can''t really work out where his best position actually is, because even when in Wes'' position he doesn''t look fully comfortable.[/quote]
No Bones. That isn''t what I asked and that isn''t what I replied to. This is the point I didn''t understand...
So you think a manager who keeps faith with players who are consistently failing to perform to the required standard, whilst players who''ve been brought in to prove that they can do better, and then despite them performing well, are being unceremoniously dropped for the same underperforming player they replaced, and you think that somehow this isn''t the manager''s problem
Which underperforming players are you talking about who have gone straight back in to replace players who performed well. And which are the players who performed well and then dropped. Your answer about 450 mins has no relevance...

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